He thought it over a good deal during the succeeding days. He had another talk with Pattern, waylaying him one evening on his return from the coal office. He had, he said, decided to follow the other’s advice about joining an amateur team, but he didn’t know how to do it, didn’t know where there was such a team. “There’s one here in Medfield,” replied Pattern. “Two, in fact. The Athletics have a pretty fair bunch, but I don’t believe they’d take you on. They’re rather a silk-stocking lot. The other team is the Chenango. Younger fellows mostly: the Y. M. C. A. bunch. By the way, you don’t belong to the Y. M. C. A., do you? Why don’t you join? It won’t cost you much of anything and will do you a lot of good all around. You’ll meet fellows, for one thing. I’ll get you an application, Sloan. It’s something you ought to do, my boy.” “I’d like to very much,” said Wayne. “But I’m afraid I wouldn’t have much time for playing ball. You see, I have to work until five every day.” “Most of the others do, too, I guess. They usually hold practice after that time. You’ll have your Saturday afternoons to yourself after the middle of June, and they only play on Saturdays. You join the Association, Sloan, and I’ll make you acquainted with some of the chaps there. You’ll find them a nice lot. And I guess you won’t have much trouble getting a chance to play.” Pattern--his full name was Arthur Pattern, as Wayne eventually learned--was as good as his word and four days later Wayne was a member of the Medfield Young Men’s Christian Association and had increased his list of acquaintances about two hundred per cent. The Association had a comfortable building in the new business district, with a well-equipped gymnasium, a small auditorium, reading, lounging, and game rooms, and a few bedrooms at the top of the building, one of which Arthur Pattern occupied. Pattern, Wayne learned, was not a native of Medfield, but had come there a year before from a small town in New Hampshire, where his folks still resided. Pattern preferred his room at the Y. M. C. A. to similar accommodation at a boarding-house. It was in Pattern’s little room that Wayne made a clean breast of his adventures for the past three months. His host, who had vouched for him to the Association without knowing any more about him than had been revealed to him in their few meetings in the freight yard, had asked no questions, but Wayne thought he owed some account of himself to his new friend. Pattern listened interestedly, and when Wayne had ended shook his head slowly. “It’s none of my business, Sloan,” he said, “and I don’t know what you were up against back home, but this thing of running away is usually a pretty poor business. However, that’s done now. One thing I would do if I were you, though, is write back and tell your stepfather where you are and how you are. I guess you owe him that much. Will you do that?”